Part 1
[Illustration: Mistah Mule Complains About His Food.
_The Tale of Mistah Mule._ _Page 24_]
_SLUMBER-TOWN TALES_
(Trademark Registered)
THE TALE OF MISTAH MULE
BY ARTHUR SCOTT BAILEY
[Illustration]
PUBLISHERS GROSSET & DUNLAP NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America
COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY GROSSET & DUNLAP
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I JUST A LITTLE JOKE 7
II GETTING ACQUAINTED 11
III FARMER GREEN’S TRICK 15
IV CROWDING THE POLE 19
V MISTAH MULE’S MEALS 23
VI SPEAKING OF HORNETS 27
VII A BALKY PARTNER 31
VIII A PIECE OF STRING 35
IX MISTAH MULE BEHAVES 39
X MINDING TOO WELL 43
XI TROUBLESOME MR. CROW 47
XII TWO BLACK RASCALS 51
XIII MISTAH MULE LAUGHS 55
XIV OBLIGING A LADY 59
XV TOO MANY QUESTIONS 63
XVI ALL ABOUT GHOSTS 67
XVII MINDING HIS MOTHER 71
XVIII GOING FOR A DRIVE 75
XIX THE RACE 79
XX THE LOAD OF HAY 83
XXI THE BLACKSMITH WINS 87
XXII TURKEY PROUDFOOT 91
XXIII A PLAN GOES WRONG 95
XXIV THE UMBRELLA 99
XXV BRIGHT AND BROAD 103
XXVI A QUEER KIND OF RACE 107
XXVII A GOOD RACE SPOILED 111
XXVIII UNEXPECTED HELP 115
THE TALE OF MISTAH MULE
I
JUST A LITTLE JOKE
There was a great flurry in the farmyard. Old dog Spot was yelping; Henrietta Hen was clucking; Turkey Proudfoot was gobbling; Grunty Pig was squealing.
“For pity’s sake! What has happened?” Miss Kitty Cat asked the old horse Ebenezer, who stood tied to a hitching-post near the woodshed steps.
Ebenezer switched his tail at a fly on his flank before he spoke.
“Didn’t you see what Farmer Green led into the barn a few minutes ago?” he inquired.
“No! What was it?” Miss Kitty answered eagerly.
The old horse Ebenezer yawned, as if there was something that made him very, very weary.
“It was a most peculiar person,” he told Miss Kitty Cat. “I made myself known to him; and asked him his name. He said it was ‘Mistah Mule.’ And then what do you think he did?”
Miss Kitty couldn’t guess.
“He tried to kick me,” said old Ebenezer in a tone of great disgust.
“Is he going to live here? Or is he only a guest?” Miss Kitty Cat wanted to know.
“He’s here to stay until Farmer Green gets tired of him,” Ebenezer explained. “The worst of it is, he’s going to have a stall right next to mine. I know already that I shall not enjoy having him as a next-door neighbor.”
All at once there was a great commotion in the barn. First came a thumping, pounding noise. Then Farmer Green’s voice rose above the racket. And next followed an odd sound, “Hee-haw! Hee-haw!”
“What’s that?” Miss Kitty Cat cried.
“It’s Mistah Mule,” Ebenezer told her. “He’s laughing. I wonder what the joke is.”
At that moment old dog Spot came scurrying out of the barn. He had his tail tucked between his legs; and his face wore a frightened look.
“What’s the joke?” the horse Ebenezer called to him.
“Mistah Mule just kicked Farmer Green,” Spot yelped. “And then Mistah Mule laughed. Didn’t you hear him?”
Ebenezer nodded.
“Did Farmer Green laugh at the joke too?” asked Miss Kitty Cat.
“He did not,” old Spot howled. “He was so angry that he scared me; though goodness knows I had nothing to do with the affair. I was merely an onlooker.”
“Are you sure you didn’t nip at Mistah Mule’s heels?” the horse inquired.
“Not I!” Spot assured him. “A good many years ago I went too near a Mule’s heels down at the village. And I’ve never forgotten what happened.”
II
GETTING ACQUAINTED
Farmer Green’s old horse, Ebenezer, stood in the barn and gazed none too pleasantly over the partition at his new neighbor in the next stall.
His neighbor, Mistah Mule, cocked one of his black ears at Ebenezer.
“Ole hoss,” he said with something like a grin, “I and you is goin’ to be hitched up together in the mornin’.”
This news almost took Ebenezer’s breath away.
“What!” he exclaimed. “Is Farmer Green going to work us in double harness? I--I can hardly believe it.”
“That what he done told his boy,” Mistah Mule declared. “But don’t you go to worryin’ yourself ’bout _work_. I kin show you plenty tricks to git outer workin’.”
The old horse Ebenezer stared coldly at Mistah Mule. Ebenezer was no shirk. And he didn’t like the thought of being driven with a lazy partner like this one.
“Where was your home before you came here?” he asked Mistah Mule.
“My real home is ’way down South,” the newcomer informed him. “I come North last spring. An’ I been spendin’ my time over where they buildin’ the new railroad.”
“So you’ve been working on the railroad this summer!” Ebenezer exclaimed.
“Not _workin’_ exactly!” said Mistah Mule. “You might say I been _balkin’_.”
“What!” Ebenezer gasped. “Are you balky, sometimes?”
“I most gen’rally is,” said Mistah Mule. And then he gave his odd laugh, “Hee-haw! Hee-haw!”
“Let me give you a bit of advice,” said the old horse, looking very solemn. “Just forget all such tricks as balking and kicking. You’ve come to make your home among kind people. You’ll be well treated here. And you ought to behave politely. When Farmer Green asks you to work, I hope you’ll do your best.”
Mistah Mule threw back his head and showed his yellow teeth in a disagreeable grin.
“I has to have my fun,” he remarked. “Sometimes I has it one way; sometimes another.”
“You’ll have the best of times on this farm,” Ebenezer advised Mistah Mule, “if only you’ll be gentle and willing. I’ve lived here all my life; and I couldn’t ask for a better home. And I’ve always tried to behave myself.”
“Don’t you never kick?” Mistah Mule inquired.
“Oh, yes! When I’m in the pasture I sometimes kick.”
“I calls that kickin’ _up_,” Mistah Mule retorted with a snort. “What about kickin’ _folks_?”
“Never! Never!” Ebenezer replied in a shocked tone.
Just then a step told them that Farmer Green had entered the barn.
“Just watch out, if he comes near me!” Mistah Mule warned Ebenezer.
III
FARMER GREEN’S TRICK
Mistah Mule had told the old horse, Ebenezer, to watch out, if Farmer Green came near him. And Ebenezer knew what his new neighbor meant by that. He intended to kick Farmer Green again.
Ebenezer soon saw that Farmer Green had a plan in his head. He called to the hired man. And then they both came up with a long, stout pole, one end of which they thrust into a front corner of Mistah Mule’s stall. Holding the other end of the pole, which stuck out a safe distance behind Mistah Mule’s heels, the hired man pushed the pole far over, crowding Mistah Mule firmly against a side of his stall.
“There!” said Farmer Green. “He can’t kick now.” And then Farmer Green walked boldly in beside Mistah Mule and untied his halter-strap. He backed that black rascal out of the stall, turned him around on the barn floor, and then backed him in again.
Mistah Mule now stood facing to the rear. He looked somewhat puzzled when Farmer Green fastened the halter-strap around the upright post on his left. He looked more puzzled when Farmer Green snapped another strap to his halter, wrapping the end of this one securely about a post on his right.
“Now,” Farmer Green remarked with a chuckle, “we can walk past this fellow’s stall without having to dodge his heels.”
Meanwhile Farmer Green’s son Johnnie had come in to watch what happened to Mistah Mule. “Won’t he bite?” he asked his father.
“No!” said Farmer Green. “He’s too wise to wear out his teeth on anything except food.”
Johnnie Green then slipped in beside Ebenezer and gave him an apple. Out of the corner of his eye, Mistah Mule saw Ebenezer take the gift. And when Ebenezer began to munch the apple, Mistah Mule spoke. “I is waitin’ for a apple,” he remarked. But Johnnie Green went away without giving him any.
“You see!” said Ebenezer to his new neighbor. “If you had behaved yourself, Johnnie would have treated you too.”
“I wouldn’t ’a bit him,” Mistah Mule answered.
“He doesn’t trust you,” Ebenezer retorted. “And I must say that I don’t blame him.”
“It ain’t right,” Mistah Mule complained, “to give a no-account ole hoss like you a apple, and not give one to a valuable young critter like my own self.”
“Valuable!” Ebenezer exclaimed with a slight smile. “I hear that your former owners _gave you away_ to Farmer Green because they couldn’t do anything with you.”
Mistah Mule hung his head. For once he was silent.
IV
CROWDING THE POLE
On the next day after Mistah Mule’s arrival at Farmer Green’s place there followed something that the old horse Ebenezer had been dreading. Farmer Green harnessed Mistah Mule and Ebenezer to a strong wagon.
“I suppose I ought not to complain, if this helps Farmer Green,” Ebenezer thought. “But I can’t help feeling that he might have spared me this disgrace. To be harnessed with a good-natured Mule would be bad enough. But to be harnessed with a kicking, balky fellow like this Mistah Mule is a thousand times worse.”
Ebenezer sighed as Farmer Green climbed into the wagon and picked up the reins. But he started willingly, as he always had, when Farmer Green spoke.
To Ebenezer’s surprise, his mate started too. He had expected Mistah Mule to balk.
“I see you’ve decided to behave,” Ebenezer remarked to him.
“Just you wait, ole hoss, until he asks me to draw a load,” Mistah Mule answered. “I doesn’t mind pullin’ a empty wagon a little ways. I likes to stretch my legs once in a while. But I doesn’t aim to do any reg’lar work. I never has done any. Why should I now?”
On the whole, Ebenezer had little fault to find with Mistah Mule’s behavior on their drive. Farmer Green put no load into the wagon. He merely jogged Mistah Mule and Ebenezer around what everybody in Pleasant Valley knew as the “Four-mile Square”; then drove them home. And Mistah Mule trotted along and stopped and started whenever Farmer Green gave the word.
Mistah Mule was almost a gentleman, except for one thing. He kept “crowding the pole,” as Farmer Green called it. He insisted on squeezing himself up against the wagon-pole, which was between him and Ebenezer. More than once Ebenezer told him to “move over.” But Mistah Mule might have had no ears at all, instead of great long ones, for all he seemed to hear.
This unpleasant trick annoyed Ebenezer. But he did not let it worry him. He had known young colts that tried it. And Ebenezer remembered that Farmer Green had a way of stopping it.
After Farmer Green had led Ebenezer into his stall, and backed Mistah Mule into his, he called to the boy Johnnie: “Bring me an old piece of leather, some long tacks, and a hammer!”
When he heard that, Ebenezer pricked up his ears.
“What’s this Farmer Green aimin’ to do now?” Mistah Mule asked him.
“You’ll find out the next time he drives us,” Ebenezer told him. And he would say nothing more.
V
MISTAH MULE’S MEALS
Mistah Mule had a hearty appetite. And he was not at all backward about demanding food. Towards meal-time he would begin to paw the floor. And though the old horse Ebenezer told him again and again to stop, he paid not the slightest heed.
“You won’t be fed any sooner for making such a racket,” Ebenezer warned him.
“The longer they waits before they feeds me, the more noise I kin make,” Mistah Mule retorted. And Ebenezer had to admit that that seemed to be true.
Now, Mistah Mule always ate all his hay--and wanted another serving. But he wouldn’t touch the grain that Farmer Green set before him in a box. At least, he wouldn’t eat it. However, he stuck his nose near it, if it was ground corn and oats, and blew into it in a most ill-bred manner, so that the grain flew in every direction. Whole oats he would hardly even look at.
Old Ebenezer watched his neighbor’s actions with great scorn.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked Mistah Mule at last. “Why don’t you eat your grain?”
“’Cause I doesn’t care for any kind they’s given me,” Mistah Mule explained. “I is used to havin’ whole corn served to me. An’ I doesn’t see why folks ’spects me to eat what I doesn’t like. I reckon this Farmer Green’ll learn to take a hint before long.”
Well, strange to say, that very day Mistah Mule shot a glance of triumph at Ebenezer, because of something Farmer Green said to the hired man.
“I declare,” Farmer Green exclaimed, “I don’t see why this mule won’t eat his grain. There can’t be anything wrong with his teeth, for he chews his hay. The only reason I can think of is that he has always been fed something else; and he’s so stubborn he won’t eat what we give him.”
“Maybe he has had whole corn,” the hired man suggested.
Farmer Green nodded.
“I’ll hitch him and Ebenezer up and drive down to the gristmill,” he said. “Perhaps the miller has some corn that he hasn’t ground yet.”
Ebenezer chuckled when he heard that. But he wasn’t pleased because Mistah Mule was going to get the kind of grain he wanted. No! Ebenezer was thinking what a surprise Mistah Mule was going to have when he crowded over against the wagon-pole, as he had when Farmer Green drove them together the day before.
He hadn’t forgotten that Farmer Green had asked Johnnie to bring him a piece of leather, some tacks, and a hammer.
VI
SPEAKING OF HORNETS
Farmer Green had started for the gristmill, driving that ill-matched pair, rascally Mistah Mule and the staid old horse, Ebenezer. When they had swung into the road in front of the farmhouse, Mistah Mule played again that trick which had annoyed Ebenezer the day before. Laying his ears back, he sidled over toward Ebenezer and pressed his flank against the wagon-pole. He knew that the trick bothered Ebenezer. Had not Ebenezer ordered him, yesterday, to “move over”? He knew that it annoyed Farmer Green too. For Farmer Green had spoken to him and tried to guide him aside by pulling on a rein.
Just for a moment Mistah Mule leaned heavily against the wagon-pole. And then he sprang away as if he had touched a red-hot coal. He plunged wildly, switched his tail, and threatened to kick.
Farmer Green tightened the reins and called to him in a calm, firm voice, “Steady, boy! Whoa! Whoa!”
Mistah Mule soon stopped his struggling. “A whole swarm of hornets done stung me,” he said to Ebenezer. “Didn’t they sting you, ole hoss?”
“I felt nothing,” Ebenezer replied.
For a few minutes Mistah Mule stayed on his own side of the road, where he belonged. But as soon as his skin stopped tingling he edged over toward the wagon-pole once more.
The old horse Ebenezer chuckled.
“Mistah Mule will get stung again as soon as he touches the pole,” he said to himself. He wondered how many times Mistah Mule would press against the sharp tacks which Farmer Green had driven through a piece of leather and then nailed to the wagon-pole, with their ends pointing at Mistah Mule. It was no wonder that when they pricked him, Mistah Mule thought they were hornets.
Old Ebenezer watched his team-mate narrowly. Soon he both saw and felt Mistah Mule lurch against the pole. No sooner had the black rascal touched it than he sprang away again with a grunt.
“Hornets agin!” he exclaimed. “Sakes alive! I declare I never see such a powerful lot as they is hereabouts.”
“Maybe if you kept away from the wagon-pole they wouldn’t touch you,” Ebenezer suggested.
“Shucks! What’s the pole got to do with my bein’ stung by these here hornets?” And Mistah Mule “crowded the pole” again--to use Farmer Green’s words.
“Ole hoss, you’re right!” he snorted as he leaped aside. “I declare these is the queerest hornets I ever did see.”
VII
A BALKY PARTNER
Farmer Green tied Mistah Mule and the old horse Ebenezer to the fence beside the gristmill and went inside the old gray building to talk with the miller.
While he was gone, Mistah Mule took great pains to keep a safe distance from the wagon-pole. He scolded Ebenezer when that mild fellow moved the pole even as little as an inch toward his companion.
“I’se been stung three times,” Mistah Mule grumbled. “I doesn’t care to be stung agin.”
“I can’t stand perfectly still and let the flies bite me,” Ebenezer retorted. “I have to stamp once in a while, to drive them away.”
“Flies!” Mistah Mule sniffed. “I doesn’t mind flies bitin’ me. It’s hornets I objects to.”
Old Ebenezer couldn’t help thinking what a dull fellow Mistah Mule was. It hadn’t once occurred to him that what he called hornet-stings was caused by the pricks of the sharp tacks which Farmer Green had fastened to the wagon-pole in order to teach Mistah Mule to stay where he belonged.
In a few minutes Farmer Green appeared in the wide doorway of the gristmill, dragging a heavy sack, which he dropped at the threshold. Then he leaped down upon the ground and walked toward Mistah Mule and Ebenezer.
“There’s your corn that you’ve been wanting,” Ebenezer told Mistah Mule. “Farmer Green is going to drive us up to the doorway and load the sack into the wagon.”
“I’se willin’ to help pull the empty wagon across the yard,” said Mistah Mule. “But after Farmer Green loads that heavy sack into it, I aims to stay right where I is.”
“What!” cried Ebenezer. “Are you going to balk? Aren’t you going to help draw your own corn home to the barn?”
There was a very surly look in Mistah Mule’s left eye, which was nearest Ebenezer, as he answered, “I doesn’t crave to do any work, even for my own self.”
Farmer Green now untied this strange pair, turned them around, and backed the wagon up to the gristmill door. Then he dumped the sack of corn into the back of the wagon, sat down upon the seat, picked up the reins, and said, “Giddap!”
“Now, don’t be silly!” said Ebenezer to his companion. “This load is nothing. We’ll have it in the barn before you know it.” And he started forward.
“I’se a person of my word,” Mistah Mule declared. And planting his forefeet firmly in front of him, he refused to budge from that spot.
VIII
A PIECE OF STRING
The old horse Ebenezer struggled forward, trying to pull both the wagon and his stubborn mate, Mistah Mule. But Farmer Green soon called, “Whoa, Ebenezer!” And then Ebenezer stood still.
Farmer Green sat upon the wagon-seat, looking down at Mistah Mule, when the miller, all white with flour, came to his door and peered out.
“What! Are you still here? I thought you had gone,” he said.
“This mule,” Farmer Green explained, “likes your place so much he doesn’t want to go home.”
“Balky, eh?” the miller inquired with a grin. “Well, it’s a nice day. I wish I had nothing to do but sit out there in the sunshine.”
“I don’t expect to sit here long,” Farmer Green replied. “Just let me have a bit of string, please!”
The miller passed him a piece of the twine that he used for tying his meal sacks.
Mistah Mule paid no heed to this talk, nor to what happened. His mind was full of one idea. And that was that nobody should make him stir a single step until the sack of corn was taken out of the wagon. With all four legs planted firmly upon the ground, with his head hung low and his long ears drooping, he looked very silly, and sulky, and stubborn.
“Come!” Ebenezer urged him. “Don’t make trouble for Farmer Green!”
“Save your breath!” Mistah Mule retorted. “I knows what I wants to do. An’ if they whips me, I’se a-goin’ to kick.”
“My! my!” said the old horse Ebenezer to himself. “I hope none of my friends sees me harnessed with this terrible person. I’m ashamed to be hitched to the same wagon with him.”
Meanwhile Farmer Green had jumped out of the wagon. And now he stood at Mistah Mule’s head. Watching, Ebenezer saw him tie the short length of cord tightly about Mistah Mule’s right ear.
“What for did he do that?” Mistah Mule asked Ebenezer.
“I don’t know,” Ebenezer replied. “Nothing like that ever happened to me.”
“This string certainly do feel queer on my ear,” Mistah Mule muttered.
Then Farmer Green climbed into the wagon again. “Giddap!” he said once more. And this time both Ebenezer and Mistah Mule started together. They walked out of the gristmill yard and trotted up the road towards home.
Mistah Mule had thought so much about that string around his ear that he had forgotten to be balky anymore!
IX
MISTAH MULE BEHAVES
Mistah Mule hadn’t been long at Farmer Green’s place before he and Johnnie Green became better acquainted. Johnnie learned that whatever other faults Mistah Mule might have, he didn’t bite. So Johnnie began to bring two apples to the barn--one for the old horse Ebenezer and one for Mistah Mule. Facing backward in his stall, so that his heels could do no one any harm, Mistah Mule used to munch the apples with a very happy look upon his face. He seemed so friendly that Johnnie Green began to tease his father to let him ride Mistah Mule.
At first Farmer Green said, “No!” But Johnnie could see no harm in asking him the same question day after day. Johnnie had sometimes known his father to change his mind. And sure enough! at last Farmer Green said, “Maybe you can ride the mule some day. But I want to ride him first. I want to see if he’s safe for you.”
Then, instead of saying to his father, “Will you please let me ride the mule to-day?” Johnnie began to put this question to him: “Won’t you ride the mule to-day, please?”
It seemed to Johnnie that his father had never been so busy. Farmer Green now had a hundred things to do, not one of which could wait while he saddled Mistah Mule and rode him. But Johnnie teased so much that Farmer Green finally took the time to do what he asked. He rode Mistah Mule up the road and back.
Somewhat to his surprise, Mistah Mule behaved very well.
“He’s a fine saddle animal,” Farmer Green told Johnnie as he jumped down from Mistah Mule’s back. “He may have some tricks that he didn’t try to play on me. Ride him, if you want to. But stay in the meadow. If he should throw you, it wouldn’t hurt you so much to fall on the grass as on the hard road.”
Johnnie Green was already shortening the stirrup-straps. He led Mistah Mule up beside a box, and from that he sprang into the saddle.
“Take good care of our boy!” the old horse Ebenezer warned Mistah Mule. “Don’t you dare to hurt him!”
“I certainly aims to do just exactly what he says,” Mistah Mule replied. And then, as Johnnie drew the bridle-reins tight, Mistah Mule walked away.
“Well, well!” Ebenezer murmured. “Mistah Mule surely is improving. He’s behaving better every day. I almost think I’m going to like him, after all.”
X
MINDING TOO WELL